Fear
by Duzzie
Summary: There's blood in the water. Contains spoilers for volume 15 and on
1. Fear

**Duzzie**

**Word Count: 187**

**Fear**

---

Fai cannot remember being this afraid for a long, long time. A choking fear that he has once again lost something, someone. A dread that he has failed once again.

As he looks down upon the water stained red, it spreads, seeps like the spiders of his past always do. "There's blood!"

"Is Syaoran okay!?" he's not sure who shouts it, can't tell the voices apart, but somehow he manages to form a word…A name.

"Syaoran-kun." The blood in the water is swirling now, swirling, swirling. He throws Mokona from his shoulder and jumps into the water with more grace than a dead man should posses.

For a few seconds that take an eternity, he cannot see anything. He cannot see Syaoran, cannot see Syaoran, cannot see Syaoran, and then…he can, and he wishes he couldn't. He is poised above Kamui, only it is not he.

This is the new Syaoran, the one that has recently taken over, and he is ripping Kamui's limbs, the blood spills out, pools and ripples into the water, mixing with Syaoran's own.

Fai cannot remember ever being this afraid of someone.


	2. Confusion

**By Duzzie**

**Word Count: 223**

**Confusion**

---

Syaoran is worried the first time _nonotthefirsttimenotthefirsttime _that his memory skips. He remembers the beast dog, and the guilt for stealing the book from it, then the pain of being shredded and thrown, and then…then nothing.

When he remembers again, he's back with Sakura and Fai, the beast is gone, the feather in his hands, and the remorse clinging to his heart, though he cannot figure out why. He can taste a victory on the tip of his tongue, yet he cannot remember being victorious.

The next time he's not sure if it really happened or not, but he can feel Kurogane and Fai's unease, and he knows that he had been awake for more than a few seconds, he just can't remember. That time, however, he recalls staring into his cold, dark eye.

After that it is shorter _butjustasdangerousjustasmuchscary _than the other time. Later, when he looks at Fai, whose eyes have been following him, there is something in them that he had never seen before. Mokona saves him from the gaze.

Before his mind can catch up with his body, there is blood in the water. There is blood, and the water is carrying it to the surface, and he knows he's dying. He knows he's dying, and he's worried, worried, worried. And then he's not.

His eyes bleed red _thisiswrongwrongwrongwrongwro…_


	3. Anger

**By Duzzie**

**Word Count: 270**

**Anger**

**---**

He has fear and confusion…and anger. Above all, Kurogane has anger. He sees Syaoran, sees him, and can't find him anywhere. He can't find Syaoran, though he is looking straight at him.

He cannot see Syaoran, but he can see a blue eye, a blue eye and blood. A spidery blood that is everywhere but nowhere important. He can see Fai, Fai who has given up everything, who has changed, for the Syaoran that they cannot unearth. Fai who is bleeding to death at the feet of the boy child that they have come to love and have lost.

Kurogane is angry, though whether it is at himself, or Syaoran, or the Syaoran that he can see but cannot find, he does not know.

"Your eye…is blue…" and as if on impulse, his hand twitches ever so slightly. He wants to rip the goddamn eye right out. The strength he is greeted with is surprising and the fury burns brighter in him, because his Syaoran, their Syaoran is not this strong, is not this strong, and he can't find him anywhere. There is no trace of the child in this body, but he knows that somewhere, Syaoran has to be there.

The crunching of a broken arm satisfies Kurogane a bit, but is not enough to calm him. He sets Fai down gently. This is not right, this battle, not with him, not between each other.

"Can't you hear me, kid!?" and in that question, there is fear, and confusion, but most of all, there is anger.

This isn't right; this isn't supposed to happen… 

…But he can't find Syaoran.


	4. Desperation

**By Duzzie**

**Word Count: 293**

**Desperation**

**---**

_My most precious person._

Sakura wakes and thinks she is in a nightmare. For she knows that if she were truly awake, it would be to a cute Moko-chan, maybe some arguing and tea, and a beautiful boy.

She did not wake up to any of this, and the fear overwhelms her.

Fai is not moving, and Kurogane looks, for the first time, helpless, as if he knows what he can do, yet would rather see the world break than to do it.

She sees Syaoran…he is fighting with someone who looks just like him, but he is empty looking and dead, and oh, god, oh, god, oh, god that's Syaoran. That shell is Syaoran, and she looks and looks, knows it's really him, but can't find him.

She hears the Syaoran that is not her Syaoran talk, but doesn't listen, and everything is going so fast and nothing makes sense and this can't be Syaoran, this can't be her Syaoran.

_My… most precious person._

It's hard to see now, but she knows he's leaving, his form is receding and she's so frightened, so, so, so, frightened, and not having the strength to lunge at him, she grabs his arm.

She's crying, and trying to tell him something, something ever so important to get him back, but she doesn't know what it is, and so it doesn't come out. She's crying, and that's all she can do, and it hurts. "Syaoran…kun…Don't…Go…"

She tries searching for him again, and maybe, maybe…no. He shakes her off and leaves.

_My most precious…_

And now she's desperate, and tries to scream out his name. "Syaoran, Syaoran, Syaoran, Syaoran! Where are you? Don't go, don't!" but nothing comes out.

She's so desperate now.

…_Person._

Her world goes black.


	5. Love

**By Duzzie**

**Word Count: 580-ish?**

**Love**

**---**

He wants to bury his nose in her hair but knows that he cannot.

_-th-thump -_

And that wasn't his heart breaking, and this isn't his heart breaking, and this isn't their hearts breaking, and this isn't her heart breaking. It isn't … it is … it is, it is, it is, it is, they're all shattered. Broken and twisted and there's nothing to be done about it.

_-th-thump-_

But there's no going back, and there never will be. There is no way to return to them _their _Syaoran, and even if there were a way, he would not be the same. He would live with the guilt, knowing that he had almost killed the wizard, knowing that he had fought the dragon, knowing that he had hurt his princess. And knowing that will hurt.

_-th-thum-thump-_

And he would never be the same.

_-th-thump-_

In this here and now, he realizes that he never minded that sleep. Never minded because he was always alive and sharing the memories with his clone and it was his life too, it was, it was, and he loves, loves, loves these people, those people, and now he watches them suffer. He sees broken hearts and broken dreams and broken bodies and broken promises and god, please make it stop, make it stop, I don't want this power.

_-TH-THUMP-_

He wonders if ever there were a time and a place that he could have saved them from this, but, of course, he'll never know, and now he lives with the guilt. And he thinks that somewhere, he must be crying; no, that him must be sobbing right now.

_-th-thump-_

But he has seen far too much crying for him to have any mercy…

_-th-thump-_

He watches them as arrangements are exchanged between the three groups, and their pain is as tangible as his bleeding heart. He will save them, he thinks. These people that they love, he will save them, and he will save himself. Later, he will tell this to Syaoran. I will save us, he will tell him, I will save us.

_-th-thump-_

And Syaoran will look at him with one eye and a bloody socket, and they will not be here to witness this because they do not know of this meeting. And Syaoran will ask him why he is willing to do this in his monotonous voice.

_-th-thump-_

And he will say…

"Syaoran knows why,"

And that is the last conversation they will have.

_-th-thump-_

And he will lower himself, his lips touching Syaoran's ears, (Syaoran will not flinch because he is not Syaoran anymore and he never will be; he is a puppet and nothing more)…

_-th-thump-_

"You love them… I love them… We… Love…Them,"

_-TH-THUM-THUMP-TH-THUM-THUMP-_

He will kill Syaoran, and they don't even know it. They will mourn and he will watch them cry and for every tear he will be killed a little more inside, and though these thoughts hurt, nothing would give him more pain than to see them anything less than safe. So he will kill Syaoran because they love them, and in turn, he will hurt them to protect them.

_-TH-THUMP-_

Softly he pierces him. His flesh is warm and red, and ever so human. Softly he kisses him. His lips have already iced. Softly, softly, softly, he dies.

_-TH-THUMP-TH-THump-TH-Thump-Th-thump-th-thump-th-thump-th-thu………………_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

He washes the red off of his hands.

Because he will _always _protect them.


	6. Hope

**By Duzzie**

**Word Count: 589**

**Hope**

**---**

Sometimes, Mokona dreams.

And it is of a faraway dimension with three young and beautiful girls who's hearts are so pure that they glow.

In his dreams, they live peacefully after a war after a battle after many deaths after a life. And still they manage to have such a sense of truth and love for others.

Sometimes, Mokona wakes up and thinks that he is part of that dimension and story and harmony. It leaves him with a good feeling; which leaves him with a bad feeling. Why should he get such good dreams and feelings when those special people around him did not?

Why were these self-sacrificing people in such pain when all they deserved was peace?

Sometimes Mokona dreams, and always, he pushes those dreams away until he deserves them, until his job protecting them is over.

But now there isn't anyone left to protect, and he realizes there never really was anyone that he _had _been protecting; now it's too late to start.

Syaoran has always been the most independent person of their group. Unintentionally, he doesn't accept help in the way people offer help. He will accept training, and advice, and he will accept other's wishes, but he has never accepted help in the form of love. And that's all Mokona can offer.

Syaoran is gone, gone, gone now and Mokona sees the ashes of a fire when he thinks of Syaoran.

Kurogane is different, he _does _accept love, and he returns it in his own ways, but he doesn't _need_ love, and therefore doesn't _need_ Mokona's help; has never wanted it, will never want it, will never take it.

And so when Mokona thinks of Kurogane, he sees a strong, proud man so close you can almost touch him; but you can't, you can't, and others can't, and Mokona can't.

Fai loves. Fai loves so much that it hurts him, hurts, hurts, hurts _killskillskills_, but he has so little, such a minuscule amount of love for himself that no matter how much love others give him, it will never amount to the space that he will not fill up.

And if Mokona's love does nothing for Fai, then he hasn't really been helping him at all, has he?

Sakura is kind and bright, and sometimes Mokona is reminded of his dreams when he looks at Sakura. She gives love and receives love, gives and receives, gives and receives so much love that her being _is _love. Sakura has so much love from other people that the only love she really needs now is Syaoran's, and Mokona isn't Syaoran.

And so when Mokona sees the blood and then the Syaoran and the eyes and the fights and the tears and _fear _and _confusion _and _anger_ and _desperation_, he almost gives up.

The truth that he has failed them is in the way that Syaoran leaves. It is in the way that Sakura cries from the inside out, and in the condition that both Kurogane and Fai are now in.

This time around, he'll help them. He'll give them so much love that they can't refuse, can't stay unaffected by it. He'll support them, and make them laugh, and he'll protect them.

Mokona will help this time so that they can dream good dreams and so that he will deserve his dreams.

That night he sees Yuuko's shop and six smiling people. Eating and laughing and _loving_.

Mokona is in the middle of all of them.

He wakes.

There lingers no

other feeling

but hope.


	7. Longing

**Duzzie**

**Word Count: 239**

**Longing**

**---**

**Dedicated to/Written for: AZALEE!!!**

**---**

_//Longing//_

_//Because wishing never got anyone anywhere//_

In which Yuuko is powerless.

---

Yuuko looks down at this kneeling child, this man that loves the children almost as much as he hates himself and wishes for something more.

She looks at the boy who was forced to watch a very important piece of him live a life that he himself longed for.

Looks at the girl with broken memories and a heart that broke with them, and sees a knight that failed to protect his charge and carries his guilt as he would his fears; tightly, with knuckles white, and fingers bleeding.

Yuuko looks at these children through time and space and reality and wants to save them _wishes that she could save them_, but she can't because she's not strong enough and she never was strong enough and she never will be strong enough and there will _never_ be someone strong enough to save them.

Hitsuzen is All.

So instead, she tells them the who and the how and the when and even though she cannot tell them the _what_, she has, in her own little ways which will cost her, given them the push toward the right direction.

"Because everything is inevitable."

Eyes cold, lips raw, face a beauty shaped by many, many losses, Yuuko is composed, always composed.

But as she is forced to look at the faces of these broken souls, _sees them_, _**sees**__ them_, and can only wish that it were enough, Yuuko swallows blood...

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

And wishes.


	8. Hate

**By Duzzie**

**Word Count: 505**

**Hate**

**---**

**a/n: **_In case of confusion._

_//Shaoran// is me referring to the new, or original person._

_/./Syaoran/./ is me referring to the old (first one to be introduced), or clone of the original._

---

"_Will you try saving me?"_

He is no longer startled by the dreams, but the cold emptiness never fails to steal his breath. The hate never fails to claim him.

"Yes." His image gives him an ugly smile, ugly, ugly, ugly and he thinks that he should never have to see that type of smile on his face again. Not that one.

"_You'll fail. You will fail and you'll lose everything again. Will you still try?"_

"Yes." And now he looks angry and for the life of him, he can't understand why. He can't understand this person even though he knows no other as well as he does Syaoran. "Yes I will try, yes I _will_ save you. I will save you and we can be together. We can be whole again."

"A stupid notion There was never a whole to begin with. I was never you. I will never be you."

"You're not me, but you're wrong. We are very, very connected. And I will save you no matter what." He is sounding desperate now, childish, angry, hopeless.

"…You will lose her. You **are** losing her."

For a moment, Shaoran thinks he is seeing him again, for a moment he is **there** in front of him and his breath hitches and his eyes widen (inside he is screaming, choking, drowning because he's tired, tired in the deepest fiber of the smallest bone in his body. Wants normal, wants right, wants what came before, wants it back, **give it all back, give it all back!**). "No, I won't. I won't lose anyone. I'm going to fix it, make it right again, it's going to be right again!"

Syaoran (only not Syaoran because his Syaoran is not the person with cold eyes and cold blood and a cold, cold heart, except he doesn't have a heart anymore does he? This Syaoran he can almost hate. Almost) scoffs. "Then you will die."

"Even so, I'll protect her…definitely." And suddenly warmth spreads over his face, covering, chasing away the frigidness that had settled in. He wants to believe. "I'm going to bring us back together again."

Syaoran fades to black and he is left alone in the chasm of his soul.

**A nightmare can only last so long.**

The ocean falls from his eyes when he wakes and cannot catch his breath.

---

Kurogane is tired. He his weary, worn out, exhausted, drained. Sometimes when he gets up, his legs, like lead, drag heavily under him and his view melts away; slithers toward the ground until only the red can be seen. Red, he has decided, is his least favorite color.

Lately it seems as if he is always dry. And there is a thirst. A painful, hot, unending thirst that he wakes up to in the morning. It is a thirst that has not, will not, cannot be quenched.

He looks down at Shaoran and can feel another crack in the small, beating mass that is in his chest, another break in the ground that has no water to hold it together.

For the hundredth, thousandth, millionth time, he hates himself so very, very much.


	9. Gratitude

**Duzzie**

**Word Count: 163**

**Gratitude**

**---**

**a/n: **_I know this chapter is way overdue, and I'm really sorry about it. Tsubasa's turns had/have been keeping me somewhat away from reading, and if not that, then definitely writing. I'm getting back into writing and because this is so short, there will be another one soon!_ **Dedicated to Azalee**, _I_ _know I owe_ _you more, so look out for it!_

---

In the end he lost an arm.

A long time (minutes, hours, years?) ago, this might have bothered him. It might have made him weaker, it might have angered him, it might have killed him. Right now, though, he can only feel relief (relief, relief, relief, they're _alive_).

These people who have gone through so much with him are still here, still beside him and, perhaps not for the first time, but for a time that has not come for what he knows is many, many years, he is selfishly happy.

Upon waking up from black sleep he is worried for the shortest amount of time but then she is by him and all he can think about is her face and her hair and her smile. Tomoyo, the shield around his heart, the one who he is now sure, worried about him everyday.

"Welcome home, Kurogane."

Home. Home.

It's good to have one to return to, because this journey isn't over yet.


	10. Remorse

**Duzzie**

**Word Count: 701...ish  
**

**Remorse**

---

**Dedication: Azalee and Mokyn  
**

**---**

_"Don't--"_

he's gotten used to this darkness, this so called dream (but whose dream?). sometimes he waits in the black hole; waits to wake up (waits for things to get better, to change, to end; sometimes he thinks he might be waiting to die, but not really because he's gone too far to turn back now) and waits to see her again, to protect her and their dear, dear friends.

sometimes he remembers things and the memories play across the blackness as if it were a screen. he watches himself sometimes and sometimes he sees _himself_ in clow country with _her_ and even though they're not really real, they were to him and it makes him (sadangryregretful_scared_) wonder how many more mistakes he'll make, how many more lives he'll ruin before this is over. he remembers Sakura all the time.

But today he has a visitor in the familiar blackness of his (someone's?) dream. A boy he knows all too well and all too closely and he wonders, sometimes, how much this boy hates him.

_"Don't!"_

they stare at each other for a while. Watanuki sort of squirms around looking uncomfortable with the silence (and he knows the feeling because when it's silent the only thing you can hear is yourself and your regrets and your shortcomings and your _thoughts_ and it's horrifying) but not all that confused. He breaks the silence first.

"So…I guess I'm dreaming again," he says.

"Yes."

_"In that case, is this my dream? Or is it your dream?"  
"__It's the same thing."_

"…then…is this my dream? Or is it yours?"

"…I don't know," 'what an odd question,' he thinks. 'Isn't this my dream?' "…I don't think it really…matters anyway…right?"

"Oh…I feel like…well, sort of like deja-vu. But I guess…a lot of things have been like that lately. I'm confused," he said, sitting down and pulling his knees up to his chest. "It's hard sometimes to understand what's real and what's not. What's reality and what are just dreams. It's a little scary, like I might--"

_"DON'T!"_

he shakes his head a little bit, having missed the end of the other boy's sentence. There's a ringing developing in his ears and his thoughts are clouding up a bit and he feels like there's something important that he needs to tell this Watanuki boy (do I know you?) but his memory is sort of like liquid today and the ringing is really getting quite loud and the darkness is sort of pulsing around him, as if wanting to eat him a little bit at a time and this dream is not normal, not like all the others and…what is that boy's name again?

"Shaoran-san…are you all right?" the boy asks and it's sort of odd that he doesn't find it odd that

"_Syaoran-kun?"_

this stranger knows his name and…there was _something_… "Shaoran-san?" he's trying to pay attention, really, he is, but now his eye is starting to burn and the ringing is practically deafening and the air is _suffocating_ him and _something_ is not _right_. The boy reaches for him and he thinks the boy's reaching for his hands but the next thing he knows he's being strangled and the boy's face is distorting as if it were erasing itself. "Why am I alive!?" he screams. "You failed failed, you failedfailedfailedfailedfailedfailed! WHY am I ALIVE!?" and this is really wrong, really, really wrong and he needs to _tell_ him something! He makes a fist and punches the ground and the blackness breaks, cracks and falls down on them in little pieces, like glass and

_"DON'T DIS--"_

the boy (Watanuki! Watanuki, not just some boy, Watanuki!) is in front of him in a position mirroring his own now and he _remembers what he needs to say_ but his ears feel as if they'll start bleeding and the ground is shaking and his _eye_

but this is important and he needs to say it and he forces himself to talk over the noise and forces himself to look into Watanuki's eyes

"Don't Disappear!"

and he wakes up with a gasp, cold sweat making the sheets stick uncomfortably to him.


	11. Relief

**By Duzzie**

**Word Count: 820-ish**

**Relief**

**---**

**a/n: **_in case of confusion_

_//Shaoran//=original_

_/./Syaoran/./=clone_

_I'm probably not as satisfied with this chapter (which might just be the very, very last in this, we'll see) so I'll probably fix it up later. I'm posting it now, but expect change ___

**dedication: Little Patch of Heaven;Azalee**

**---**

//.//_The mirror melts  
Somewhere else  
Inside eternity  
Where you, on outstretched wings,  
Sing within  
__**The garden of everything**__.  
So here we are lovers of lost dimensions  
Burning supernovas, of all sound and sight  
Every touch, a temptation  
And for every sense, a sensation_

…

_Walk in the __**rain**__, in the rain, in the rain  
I walk in the rain, in the rain  
Why do I feel so alone  
For some reason I think of home//.//_

_---_

At first it hurt, the pain of remembrance. His conscious came back to him in pieces. He started by leaving a survivor in one world and a family in the next. He remembered things like laughter and the heat of embarrassment flush on his cheeks. He remembered an archaeologist and a king, a priest and a country. He regained the feeling of fondness, but more importantly the feeling of regret when he remembered a magician and a warrior that kindly supported him when he was a burden. He remembered a princess. He remembered love.

It started as a small breeze and grew into a voice. Like a butterfly in his empty chest, the voice scratched its way out of a cocoon, bleeding and raw and real (and he knew it was real, knew it was his own). It turned into a scream and echoed throughout the chasms of his mind. He could feel it quake, as if every nerve in his body were on fire and screaming and once it started it didn't stop. His chest hurt when he breathed and his voice, though he never spoke, bled as if from overuse. It screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed until one day, he saw Shaoran again, and the voice changed. The screaming grew quiet and calmed. It'd felt as if the voice was crying.

Shaoran, the boy he'd never been and never knew he hadn't been, a person so close to his heart that if he'd had the time, he would have wondered how close they could have been as friends (he would have wondered in what world they were brothers and in what world one of them didn't exist and in what world they walked to school together _andinwhatworldthey'rehappy_).

He sees Shaoran again (fighting next to _them_), determined and sad and doing all of the things that Syaoran himself ever wanted to do. Had he had the time, he would have felt lonely, but he didn't and he came up with a plan that'd been hatching before he even remembered what disobedience meant and after that…after that. After that, he died.

He died because there wasn't room for him and because Shaoran was more important than he was and because Fai needed his magic back and because Kurogane needed the fuel to fight and because he'd already worried Mokona enough and because _there was no Sakura for him anymore_.

It had almost been a bittersweet relief, more bitter than sweet, but being able to feel the blood flow out of him (proof he'd lived) and the pain of his wound and the stinging of tears in his eyes was something he never knew he'd missed until then.

Being held in his mirror's arms was something like being whole again and even as the voice inside him grew more quiet as each heartbeat became weaker and weaker, he thought he heard it sigh between the crying. And it was sad, because he didn't want to die and he hadn't wanted any of this and all that he'd ever wanted was to come home to his father's small and sandy home in his small and sandy country to be greeted by the only girl he'd ever love and he'd wanted a good ending and he'd wanted to show his gratitude to Kurogane-san and Fai-san and he'd wanted, he'd wanted, he'd wanted…he'd wanted everyone to be happy.

"I'm…sorry," _sosorrysosososorrygodiwant_

"Forgive…..Me….Thank….Yo…"

and before he'd gone on ahead he remembered the softest smile he'd ever received and let himself be enveloped in its warmth.

---

Somewhere else, a figure woke up with a heavy gasp.

"Syaoran? Sorry, I didn't want to wake you, but our stop is next," said the girl next to him. He looked around him, still half disoriented and half panicked from the dream (_but no, it was…it wasn't a dream it was a_). He was in the subway--where he was supposed to be (_?_)--with Sakura and they were going to school, like they always did. He shook his head to clear away the fog.

"We're going to miss our stop if we don't get off now, Syaoran…." She felt his forehead, concerned about his unordinary unresponsiveness. He looked at her almost as if seeing her for the first time and felt so happy he wasn't sure where it was coming from. When they got off the train, he grabbed hold of her and held her in his arms. She blushed and stammered, pushing out of his hug. She took his hand shyly.

"Is everything okay, Syaoran?" she asked.

"Yeah, I had a dream but…I don't remember what it was about now." When she continued to stare worriedly at him, he smiled and squeezed her hand.

"Yeah, I'm sure it's nothing. I'm great."

"I'm great." He whispered and the wind carried it and carried it and carried it and carri………………

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.


End file.
